(Today DGR circles back around to one of his favorite tech-death bands, the Parisian unit Fractal Universe and their new album The Great Filters, which was released by M-Theory Audio on April 4th.)
When did we settle on France’s Fractal Universe becoming tech-death’s younger brothers? Other than the part where it seems like they’ve discovered a fountain of youth and seem to appear perpetually young.
Founded in 2013, by the time of their second album Rhizomes Of Insanity Fractal Universe were already a polished and terrifically talented band, constructing songs out of guitar riffs just on the left side of bizarre and forever jagged as rocks slowly worn down by nature. Over time, they’ve become a being all their own that have absorbed as many influences as they themselves have influenced, each release some new permutating on a core sound honed well over the course of a decade.
Yet, it seems that the tale of Fractal Universe is just as much a tale of “well fuck you, I can do that too!” on every album.
They are not a band you could ever accuse of having to prove themselves, yet they’re also a band that seem to have a finger on the wider pulse of their genre as a whole, and whatever new element may pop up elsewhere in some other band’s experiments, Fractal Universe seem to quickly get a gleam in their eye and a musical-prodigy-like understanding of “oh we get to use that now,’ and within their albums you’re likely to hear some new flavoring around the fringes of the band’s more ethereal and melodic take on death metal as a whole.
They have earned their progressive marks, be it by way of competing in a head-to-head sprint with bands like Alkaloid or attempting to chart paths far stranger. The mad architects behind many a twisted construction, Fractal Universe‘s latest adventure takes us deep into both the scientific and philosophical with The Great Filters.
Other than a lineup change on the guitarist front it seems the near-four years since the release of their album The Impassable Horizon have been kind to the Fractal Universe crew. Their mission statement for The Great Filters seems to be one of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and instead of this album being a massive leap into the unknown it is instead one of refinement and iteration.
You’d never guess almost four years had passed between the two albums from the moment that The Great Filters starts up. Early on Fractal Universe establish that instead they’re going to take their style and expand it. You could view The Great Filters as an album of expansion more than anything; many of the ideas presented throughout The Impassable Horizon are approached again here. They may use a slightly different tack or a particular element may receive a lot more spotlight than it has in the past – including a fair share of Fractal Universe‘s latest foray being clean-sung – as if the band were seeking to fully establish a progressive tag in front of their own bizarre form of tech-death.
They’ve never been one to fully devolve into the high-speed wall-of-notes solo work, which may partially help explain their lasting appeal. They have never devolved into the hyperspeed mud that tech-death can sink into when played with too recklessly, and there is an auditory fascination on every album from Fractal Universe to see just how far they can control their taste for bouncing groove and hard angles to end musical measures. Well, that and more recently how many times they’re going to unleash their guitarist and vocalist Vance Wilquin on some form of wind instrument.
The Great Filters is an adventure. Clocking in at nine songs and close to fifty minutes of music, Fractal Universe‘s latest issuance is one with multiple six-plus-minute musical wanderings in which the kitchen sink is not only provided and used but later launched into orbit to add to the circling detritus that is going to eventually make it impossible for us to leave this planet. While songs like the wandering “The Seed Of Singularity” or the more intense “Causality’s Grip” do offer a good first impression of The Great Filters, as both contain a multitude of the ideas that Fractal Universe are Frankensteining this album together with, they don’t tip people off to the sense of scale that Fractal Universe intend to play with.
The Great Filters is frontloaded with its more head-on numbers first. “The Void Above” does the “welcome to the show” act as it peels the curtain back for the album as a whole, rocketing things forward from moment one and offering glimpses of the vast and varying vocal styles that will be on display. You’ll also know pretty quickly just how hard Fractal Universe intend to lean into the prog-rock side of things on The Great Filters by the end of its first batch of songs, as a good majority of those moments are just as much quiet and pensive guitar fluctuation as they are math-problem turned into headbanging music.
Right in the middle of the album is where The Great Filters turns, like a switch being flipped, and the initial sort of “comfort zone” singles disintegrate into the aether. All of a sudden the music gets much more expansive and wide-eyed in its ambition and songs get longer because of it. Halfway through The Great Filters and you’re now in the six-plus-minute range for a good brick of these songs.
This is an act Fractal Universe have performed before, deftly balancing just how much they can pack into a particular song and knowing when they’ve started to overstay their welcome. Dating back to Rhizomes Of Insanity even, the five-plus-minute song is well-worn ground for the band. The Great Filters is the first time in a long time for the group when they’ve had a plus-sized run of six-minute songs where they have to earn every minute they spend with you. A few of them do puff up their run times a little by account of quiet intro, but again, a song like “The Equation Of Abundance” is just as much influences on full display as it is oversized progressive undertaking.
The musical sands shift underneath the band as the song transitions from a seemingly quiet bit of ballad work into a wall of destruction by three-minutes-and-forty-five seconds into the song. It’s a little clean-cut in how it cleaves the song in half but it is one of a handful of songs that tends to grow organically like that. “Specific Obsolescence” handles the act a little better by starting off on the heavier side and allowing for a smoother transition mid-way through, including one of the catchier guitar leads amidst the wash in the sound of the back third of the song. The segment right before the piano bit within “Specific Obsolescence” could give fans of An Abstract Illusion and their album Woe chills for a bit. If nothing else, Fractal Universe could be considered conjurers with how good they are at summoning up specific moments from the wider world of heavy metal.
Every time we touch base with Fractal Universe it feels like we cycle back around on the same point – fitting, as this album closes with a song entitled “A New Cycle” – and it is that they’re always so damned close to breaking out with something exceptionally memorable. It’s not so much like the band have a glass ceiling to shatter but it sure does seem like all the steam behind them and their songwriting capabilities have wound up with them having their faces mashed against it, such that the pressure is going to turn them to a paste.
They’ve been consistently good-to-great for four albums and The Great Filters is no different. Each new disc inches ever closer to tech-death’s younger brothers leaving a mark big enough on their own that you won’t feel like you have to guide people to them anymore. The Impassable Horizon was an enjoyable effort that ran a little long; The Great Filters hews it back a bit but blows up a portion of the ideas of that previous abum even larger than before. There’re some magical moments within The Great Filters and just knowing that somehow Fractal Universe are going to keep iterating along and plowing forward is enough the keep one interested in their future.
Whatever wall has been erected in front of them preventing a wider breakout may be shattered within the next go ’round and the band are going to leave a crack so large that you’d be able to see another dimension through it.
https://fractaluniverseband.bandcamp.com/album/the-great-filters
https://www.fractaluniverseband.com
https://www.facebook.com/fractaluniverseband
https://www.instagram.com/fractaluniverseband